The Mysteries of London; or, Lights and Shadows of London Life — page 175: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

es, THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON. 169 SE wk ye) il WA te - iA, WA Yd + Vi ‘ eS FS y sé i j bi //A t/a BRS a\\ wD Te Pins x Va Wi LE! = -—. = ae ae CHAPTER I. | “ This even-handed justice Returns the ingredients of the poisoned chalice | To our own lips.” Shakspeare. THe evening of the 8th of. February, 1775—we must beg of our readers not to forget the date—closed im as cheerless 4 day as ever engendered the blue- devils, or suggested Suicide to the despairing and wretched. The rain, mingled with a sharp arrowy sleet, had fallen with that leaden monotonous splash which, like the tick of the death-watch in a sick ‘Iman’s chamber, irritates the sufferer’s nerves, fasci- nates his attention, and causes a sense of loneliness and depression. It had continued to fall without interruption almost the entire day; the short inter- vals between the showers were varied by a cold easterly ‘Wind, so sharp and piercing, that it searched to the very bones of the shivering, hungry, houseless wretches Whom misfortune or crime left with no other shelter than the bleak, inhospitable streets, The evening Was, if possible, more dreary than even the day had been; the tempest, which had gradually changed into a& hurricane, shrieked and groaned alternately, like a 22 a —_ —— —E (E(@) ag FOURTH SERIES. ' 1 \j / | ' Hite a h t C4, 7s af e | despairing murderer’s conécience, as it swept in vio- lent eddies, or broke in gusts round the huge chimney stacks, and against the old gables which a isappear- ing daily from the street architecture of London. Not a chair or a carriage was to be seen unless at the court end of the town, where heartless pleasure holds its revels next door to misery, without a thought or a care whether its neighbour lives or starves—such is the world. Few who possessed the shelter of a home amongst the poorer classes cared to leave it on such a night; even Fleet Street and the busy Strand were deserted by all but the instruments of crime or the victims of misfortune, It was about eight o’clock on the night we have endeavoured to describe that a young female, thinly clad, whose appearance denoted that respectable kind of poverty which is far more touching to the eye of sensibility than rags, was seen making her way over the slippery broken pavement of Fleet Street, and directing her steps towards Temple Bar. Her gown, though faded, had been a rich brocade; and the well- worn mantle, which the shivering creature had pulled tightly round her shoulders to protect her chilled <S) (E@)